


Open Seas Make Me So Afraid

by reversustenebris



Category: A New Brain - Finn/Lapine
Genre: M/M, Nothing extreme I promise, im not a monster fucker i promise i just think mermaids are cool, this is mostly fluffy and self indulgent, uh a little abuse mention and a little body horror????
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-10
Updated: 2018-07-10
Packaged: 2019-06-08 02:28:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,458
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15233355
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/reversustenebris/pseuds/reversustenebris
Summary: When Roger crashes his boat a little too far away from home, he meets a kind stranger who just seemed to appear from the water.





	Open Seas Make Me So Afraid

Roger wasn’t quite sure how he got here, but he knows it wasn’t great.

The sea started getting a little choppy. That’s fine, he’s handled it before. The wind picked up. That’s fine too, he’s got it covered.

Except, apparently, he doesn’t, because now he’s sitting on a rocky shore as wind and rain hit his face. He’s covered in small cuts and bruises, the worst being over his eye, and his hand comes back red when he touches it. And the saltwater stings his cuts and the salt from the tears that are now falling stings too. But the physical pain is nothing compared to his dismay at losing his boat, because he’s far from the rest of the world.

His minor injuries start to feel a lot worse once he realizes he’s stuck.

\----

Roger starts with the classics first. Aligning the rocks on the shore to spell ‘HELP’ in uneven letters. Leaning branches against a couple of trees to make something that almost resembles a shelter. 

He’s covered in dirt and blood and he’s laying on the rocks by the water and he wants nothing more to go home. Which is something pretty new for him. Why else would he spend all his time on the water?

But he’s so far away from home, and he’s stuck with his mediocre survival skills that he barely learned because he never thought he’d need them.

\----

He thinks it’s been about four days when he hears it. He’s curled up on the beach, staring at the cloudy sky when someone speaks.

“Holy shit, dude. Are you okay?” A concerned voice says. Roger sits up and looks around, but nobody’s there. Awesome. Now he’s hallucinating. He lays back down and curls up even more, covering his face as tears start welling up.

“Oh my God,” the voice says again, and then somebody splashes him. Roger sits up again, because can’t the universe leave him alone? But this time, he sees someone. 

There’s a guy in the water he doesn’t recognize. He’s got short, brown hair that’s dripping with water, and scars exposed by his lack of shirt, and a look of concern on his face.

“Oh you’re good. Great. Come over here,” the guy says, swimming backwards further into the ocean. Roger stands up and makes his way down the beach and he steps into the water after the guy, losing the ability to care if his clothes are wet or not. 

“Are you real?” Roger says, touching the stranger on the cheek.

“Fuck, dude, I sure hope so,” The stranger says, breaking out in a smile, and-

“Holy shit!” Roger shrieks, pulling back. His smile exposed huge, sharp teeth, way different from the body modification kind Roger’s seen before.

The guy slaps his hands over his mouth. “Oh no,” he says through his hands. They hold the most uncomfortable eye contact Roger has ever made in his life for what feels like an hour before the stranger speaks again. “I’m Gordon.”

“I’m Roger,” Comes the reply, and, for some reason, he holds his hand out for Gordon to shake. He returns it, and it hurts, and Roger realizes that it’s because Gordon’s got claws too. “Can you…,” Roger pauses and stares, “Explain the teeth? And the claws? And the whole showing up without a boat thing?”

“Yeah, fuck, hold on,” Gordon says, and he swims even further back before flipping himself upside down in the water. What comes back up is a long, white tail. It’s covered with uneven black and orange spots, and the fins are flowing and almost translucent. Roger recognizes it as a koi fish, which is interesting, because he’s only ever seen those in little lakes. Gordon’s head pops back up over the waves. “Surprise!” he says weakly.

“Surprise.” Roger repeats, suddenly lightheaded.

\----

Roger sits and stares at the water, trying to ignore the unfamiliar feeling his new boat gives him. He bought it as soon as he got back home.

Getting back home was quite an adventure. He had sat talking to Gordon for hours before he noticed that he was still dehydrated and stranded. Gordon had reacted to this by picking him up and swimming him back to the mainland. It definitely wasn’t as far as Roger had thought it was, but it was too far for him to make it on his own, so he was very thankful for Gordon’s help.

As he stares at the water, he sees a smiling face appear underneath the surface. He smiles back, and Gordon swims up to the surface and rests his arms next to Roger.

“Hey,” Gordon says, looking up at him and starting when he sees his face, “Oh shit. Are you okay?” 

Roger’s cut above his eye had been reopened, and there were new scratches on his face that hadn’t been there before. 

“Not really,” Roger replies, smile disappearing. 

Gordon pushes himself further up onto the boat and cups Roger’s cheek, careful not to touch the scratches and careful not to make any more. “What was it? You didn’t wreck your ship again, did you?”

Roger leans into Gordon’s hand and closes his eyes. “It’s my boyfriend.”

Gordon flinches so hard he falls back into the water, and he recovers before staring up at Roger with sadness on his face. “Fuck him!” He shouts, gesturing wildly.

“I know,” Roger mumbles, “I want to leave. I really do. But he’ll do something worse if I do.”

Both of them are silent for what feels like forever. “What if you go somewhere where he can’t find you?” Gordon says.

Roger chuckles, which definitely doesn’t fit the sad look in his face. “If I could, I w-”

He’s cut off by Gordon pushing himself back out of the water and kissing him. It kinda hurts, with the force Gordon is using to hold himself up as well as the sharpness of Gordon’s teeth. Roger can’t say he hasn’t wanted to do this, though. Gordon apparently loses the strength to hold himself back up and collapses back into the water, a dazed smile on his face.

Roger laughs quietly, “That was nice,” he stops laughing and goes back to staring into the ocean, “Don’t see how it’ll help th-”

Roger is cut off again, but this time, it isn’t by Gordon. Instead, he is suddenly feeling the worst pain he has ever felt in his life. His entire body feels like it’s being shocked, like each bone is being broken individually. He doesn’t realize he’s screaming until he’s being held by Gordon, who is shushing him.

“You’re okay. You’re okay. It’ll be over soon. I promise,” Gordon repeats, running his fingers through Roger’s hair.

The water does make Roger feel better, and he feels the pain slowly get replaced with numbness as he falls unconscious. 

\----

Roger wakes up still in Gordon’s arms, who is now swimming the two of them in circles around the boat and singing under his breath.

“Hi,” Gordon says, smiling down at him. His smile grows impossibly big when Roger returns it, “Look at you.”

“What do you mean?” Roger says, before looking down and realizing exactly what Gordon means. His legs have been replaced with a tail. It’s different from Gordon’s though. It’s silver, with blue and yellow markings on the top. And he has a tall, pointed sail sticking out from his back, bridging between the upper and lower halves of his body. Gordon is trying really hard not to touch the sail, and he assumes it’s pretty sharp. He squirms out of Gordon’s grasp and finds it pretty easy to hold himself up in the water. “Holy shit.”

“Hm, I know,” Gordon replies, looking him over, “A sailfish, huh?”

“Wow, really?” Roger says with a scoff, “That’s funny. The universe knows, I guess.”

“Guess it does,” Gordon says before pausing, “Shit, Roger, I’m sorry. I should have asked before I did that. I don’t know what I was thin-”

Roger copies Gordon’s actions from earlier that day and kisses him to stop the rambling. “It’s okay,” he says, though it’s more to himself, “I didn’t have a lot of stuff I was very attached to. You’re the nicest… living thing I know, and I’ve only known you for a week.”

“That’s kinda sad.”

“It is kinda sad,” Roger says with a laugh, “Glad I know you though.”

They lay there in the water for a while, following the shadow made by the sail of Roger’s abandoned boat to keep them in the shade.

“Oh shit, do I have the cool teeth?” Roger asks out of the blue, reaching up to touch his mouth before baring his teeth at Gordon.

“You sure do.”

“Awesome. Thanks.”

Gordon laughs too. “You’re welcome.”

**Author's Note:**

> queen of weak endings
> 
> just kidding. thank you so much for reading!!
> 
> the title and general inspiration for the work is from the song vixen by destroy boys. highly recommend.


End file.
